I studied taijutsu for all of six months with the Genbukan, so I personally have nothing against the idea of modern day Ninjutsu practitioners. In fact, my experience with the Genbukan was an enjoyable one, though not necessarily what I'm looking for currently.

I have no agenda, no reason to discredit any martial system, and really no reason to even bring up threads like this for discussion...except that crap like this thread do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to clear the name of a system currently under heavy fire.

The arrogant, haughty, "I'm clearly far too educated to talk to you" attitude and tone put not only Ben Cole in a negative light...but darn near ALL Bujinkan Shihan!

I can almost FEEL Shinbushi and other down to earth Bujinkan Shihan dropping their faces into their palms in frustration.

So I apologize for lighting yet another "Laugh at the Ninjers!" thread...but this one really needs to be seen, since the reasoning for the unorthodox teaching methods of the Bujinkan aren't:

-Preservation of cultural history
-Alternative look at past battlefiend combat
-Methods of health and exercise kept alive for centuries
-A means to reconnect with history
-Spiritual enlightenment
-Insert possible reasoning

...but simply:

-You are all far too uneducated, ignorant, and self-delusional to actually understand what is being taught. We're right, you are all wrong.

I actually used to defend taijutsu against detractors...but one stupid post from an arrogant Shihan penetrated even my own thick, stubborn, and traditionally minded skull.

Dear lord: aside from the fact that this doesn't apply AT ALL to fucking fighting, here are some falsehoods and the explanations:

So Soke has come along and stated something quite profound: "All mathematics is addition."

Some of these posters, as Master's students applying for a PhD program, say, "Well, I see that this is true for subtraction--it's the addition of a negative number. It's true for multiplication as well--it's just repeatedly adding numbers." This thinking continues through a lot of math concepts that they've studied.

Wrong, first of all there are plenty of concepts in mathematics that are not based on addition. For example: Graph theory--an entire branch of mathematics can not be atomized to addition. How about computational mathematics (you know--computer science) and things like sorting, or scheduling. Guess what, mathematics is more than 'rithmatic.

The trouble is: They still don't recognize that calculus is ALSO merely addition.

This is pretty much the dumbest thing I've ever read. For one: what he's saying is painfully obvious--of course calculous is (mostly) addition. You know the integral symbol? You know how it's an elongated 'S'? You know how 'S' is the first letter in the word 'sum' which is derived from the latin word 'summa' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s)? Coincidence? Calculus is at its core a set of rules that allows for the summation of a continuous set of values by aproximating it with a discrete sequence.

It's almost a pity that the post isn't longer. I found it amusing how wrong it was.

Originally Posted by Osiris

Imagine if track was run like the martial arts community. While the winning teams would just sprint down the field, smoking the competition, you'd have a bunch of losers running around explaining how they can skip down the track just as fast. Never mind that it doesn't fucking work. Oh no, they're too fast for track. They run on the STREET.

It is quite obvious that Ben Cole and Dale Seago are out to destroy the credibility of martial artists everywhere. Their rein of stupidity will be long and the list of enemies that they have slain will be distinguished.

at times I had questions/doubts about certain mounting/submissive positions, since it left the person in the dominant position, open to a slew of counter attacks. Granted a lot of the counter attacks could be/would be deemed "dirty", but then again all real confrontations are. But the person in the dominant position could afford to apply them no doubt, seeing how technically they were protected by the sporty/no strikes allowed rules.